


The One Where Uchiha Sasuke Is A Feudal Princess

by Tozette



Series: Soulmate AU Challenge Fics [8]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Arranged Marriage, Except when it's not, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Time Travel, pairing is very peripheral
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-10-31 13:15:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10900110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tozette/pseuds/Tozette
Summary: Izuna looks curiously at him. “Of course. I know you don’t know each other very well, but youarefamily. He wouldn’t let them…” he eyes Sasuke “…do whatever is putting that expression on your face.”Sasuke gives him a long, blank look. The list of things Madara would do to his family, given the right motivation, is longer than Sasuke’s remaining arm.





	The One Where Uchiha Sasuke Is A Feudal Princess

**Author's Note:**

> Two things:
> 
> One, this was an anonymous prompt for my soulmate au challenge. There are some rules, which you can find [over here on my personal blog](http://tozettewrites.tumblr.com/post/152004964326/soulmate-aus-writing-challenge-to-myself). I think the most important thing to know is that the rules do mean that anything posted as a result of the challenge is unedited. (On this one I broke the rules by taking a break for a nap. It's long. I still kind of hate it.)
> 
> Two, I realised while writing this that I don't remember the canon finale because I got kind of bored with it. I feel like I might have gotten parts of Sasuke's backstory wrong here for that reason. I could look it up but I could also go to bed if you get what I'm saying.

“I have never seen our elders look more suspicious in my life,” Izuna hisses. At least he’s keeping his voice down. “A cadet branch of the family from the northwest, really? A _dead_ cadet branch?” 

“Did you want to tell them it’s _time travel_?” Madara murmurs, tilting his head toward him. “And they had to be dead, because I won’t be producing any other surprise relatives from nowhere. What else would we tell them?” 

The corridor is almost empty at this time of day, just the swept wooden floors and the soft sounds of their steps. The meeting with the clan elders wasn’t quite as bad as Madara was expecting, but it’s been a long time since he had a cordial relationship with any of them. This is… not helping. Madara does not care. The possibility of peace with the Senju clan slinks closer in Sasuke than it has in years and years of coaxing and wheedling and arguing between himself and Hashirama. Madara is sick of burning bodies, and some days it seems like the elders are the only ones in the clan who aren’t. Some opportunities cannot be squandered. 

Sasuke is walking under his own power two steps ahead of them. He shouldn’t be, but Madara has no illusions that he’ll stay peacefully in bed if ordered. 

It’s plain that Sasuke doesn’t trust the clan in general… or Madara more specifically. Madara doesn’t understand why, since there’s no way he’s still alive in the time period Sasuke comes from. Even civilians don’t live that long, let alone ninja. So maybe he shares a resemblance with someone else, or maybe he’s done something recently – he doesn’t know, and he’s not convinced it matters. Sasuke has nowhere else to go, and Madara has a family and a place to belong and a sensible use for him. 

He’s not entirely sure how Sasuke learnt about the meeting in the first place, but he was either going to attend or eavesdrop. It’s easier to keep an eye on him if Madara knows where he is. And Sasuke… needs keeping. In a way. It’s not because he’s obstructive or uncooperative, exactly – he hasn’t tried to run since that first time, and Madara doesn’t think it’s because of the friendly chat they had about it, so he wonders what Izuna has said to him in private – but… Madara has been accused of occasional self destructive leanings, and he recognises them in another.

“I don’t know,” Izuna admits, “but ‘we found a surprise relative with no parents, siblings or other family in a ditch and he just happens to be Senju Tobirama’s soul mate’ might be pushing the bounds of believability.”

It’s true, except that each of these facts is irrefutable: that Uchiha Sasuke is one of theirs is painfully obvious even from his looks alone, but he also has the sharingan. He cannot trick the elders’ eyes with illusions - and to suggest it would be a massive blow to their pride - so they are forced to accept that much. That he has no immediate family is less easily proven, but if they exist they’re certainly not here or, more accurately, _now_. Madara has had to make up the supposed ‘illegitimate cadet branch’ of the family out of whole cloth just to explain his existence. That Madara found him in a ditch is… irrelevant but also accurate. 

That he is Senju Tobirama’s soul mate is the most easily proven. That name is printed on his chest, indelible and stark like a brand. The text hums with his pulse. It is unmistakable. The elders could not refute it. 

When Madara and Izuna left, firmly taking Sasuke with them, they were arguing about the proposal – which is their right, of course, as clan elders. Madara thinks that if they don’t come down on his side he’s going to shove their rights down their wrinkly throats. 

Ahead of them, Sasuke’s limp is more obvious, if you’re looking, and his shoulders are stiff. He must be able to hear most of their hushed conversation but he chooses to ignore it, as he chooses to ignore… a lot of conversations. Even most of the ones people are actively trying to include him in. 

Madara couldn’t see the limp when they left for the meeting, but now the sun is high in the sky, making the paper in the windows glow pale but warm, and Sasuke’s gait is subtly unsteady. He flicks his fingers in a scout sign to Izuna, whose expression sours.

Izuna can look as sour as he wants, but three days of experience is enough to teach Madara that if _he_ tries to get Sasuke to rest, Sasuke will be out the window and up a tree within about thirty-one seconds, provided that the tree is far, far away from Madara. He’s not really friendly with Izuna, either, except by comparison. 

“He’s a grown man, brother,” Izuna drawls loudly. “I’m sure he knows better than to aggravate his injuries by traipsing around the compound instead of resting.”

“So you’d think,” says Madara. He makes sure his voice is even and neutral. Sasuke bristles anyway, but he doesn’t turn back toward them.

*** 

It’s like this: Sasuke’s soul mark is a blurry mess when he’s born. It’s on his chest, where they all are, and it’s unreadable. Usually that means a soul mate is dead or not yet born. At first his family assumes that they are not yet born, but as the years churn on it seems less and less likely. It’s not common to be born to a soul mate already dead, but it’s not unheard of. 

It’s just… not regarded as particularly auspicious, either. It’s a cold thing, to stand exempt from the ties that bind everybody to another.  

Finding a soul mate is always a beautiful, precious thing. Most ninja cover their chests for work. The name of a soul mate is not revealed to strangers – it’s too precious. 

But when Sasuke gets to sixteen, seventeen, eighteen and they still haven’t shown up yet? He knows they’re dead. 

And since they’re dead, he has no secrets to keep. Sasuke intentionally chooses clothing that shows a narrow strip of skin down his chest, now, but since all it displays is the fuzzy blur, all it tells anyone is that his soul mate is not alive and there’s no such attachment to use against him. It’s like a brand on his skin: he is alone, cold, free. 

At first he doesn’t have time for that kind of attachment, and there’s an icy satisfaction every time he catches a glimpse of it – and every time somebody’s eyes drift down and their expression stills, or darkens somewhere behind the eyes. 

All Sasuke wants is vengeance. There’s nothing that comes after it, just the blaring klaxon of revenge in his mind. 

Later, he’s older, marginally wiser. His family is avenged. Sort of. A lot of people are dead, anyway, and some of them are arguably responsible for the massacre of the Uchiha clan. It’s hard to say if that’s revenge, in the end.

He feels hollowed out, and too old and jaded even for regrets, and on his chest the soul mark is dim and blurry still. He wears it openly, less like a badge of honour and more like a warning. 

After the end, he travels. He doubts he’ll be lucky enough to get peace, but if he runs far enough, fast enough, maybe he can get some respite from the howling in his head.

So it happens like this: Sasuke travels alone, in silence, and wonders at how easy it is to miss something as irritating as Karin and Suigetsu arguing. He walks through a puddle on the road – and he misses a step. Somewhere. He feels the attendant swooping horror in his guts, and then, somehow, falls out of the sky.  

His skin is burning and his head is spinning and his insides feel like ice. Sasuke twists mid-air, trying to see or sense or hear over the roar of his own speed – of falling – what’s attacking him. 

Nothing. Nothing’s attacking him, he’s just – falling. 

He feels like he’s falling forever, blind and senseless, and then when there’s light all it shows him is the ground rushing up toward him, far too fast. He twists and bends expertly, threads chakra through his body to shield it from impact, but from such a height – 

Sasuke makes a textbook landing, but the fall is too great. His landing makes a crater. He can feel the crack of something his foot. 

Sasuke is dazed for a second, staring at dirt while the shock and pain echo up his leg. Then his brain clicks over, a masterwork of clockwork and narrowing focus. Where is he? The sky above is blue and clear, and he can hear a river nearby. He can sense two people awfully close – big dense masses of chakra, one that feels oddly familiar, although he can’t place it. Since Sasuke’s range is extremely short, that means they’re right here, now.

He wakes the sharingan in his eyes, pinwheels spinning lazily as he looks carefully around. Yes, ducking between the trees is a series of tiny movements that occur in a pattern – someone used to moving through the forest, but not scared or wary. 

“It’s just over here – that was a big impact, do you think something fell out of the sky?” 

The voice isn’t one Sasuke recognises, but it’s adult, male, and more curious than concerned. It’s heading in Sasuke’s direction now. Along with the movement in the trees, and Sasuke brings his hand up, focusing chakra, thinking fast – how does he get away, quickly and silently, on a broken foot?

“How would it fall out of the sky exactly?” comes a second voice, this one with a distinct tone of eye rolling. 

“I don’t know, perhaps it was flying–”

“It’s too big.”

There aren’t a lot of options, thinks Sasuke. Genjutsu, probably. He’s sure these unwary ninja will make eye contact with him, at least, and then he can be gone from their senses before they even know what they’re looking for. 

“Well, you – oh.” 

Sasuke is too startled to finish the technique. His eyes tell him there’s no illusion, but the man who appeared out from the trees is one whose face he knows – it’s carved into the mountain above his childhood home. And… it’s a good likeness. The armour is right, too, a dull forest green that matches the flak jackets Konoha ninja wear. 

Sasuke blinks. Hashirama does not meet his eyes, not after that first startled glance.

“One of your clansmen followed us,” he says after a long pause.

“What are you talking about?” snaps the second voice, and then Uchiha Madara brushes aside a low hanging branch. He halts.

Even if Sasuke could salvage this mess and cast a genjutsu over Hashirama, it wouldn’t work on Madara. He swallows. He’s still trying to think of a way out of this, but his brain’s misfiring, sending him running in circles internally. His sharingan are strong and there’s no way it’s an illusion, so – so he’s looking at Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara and he doesn’t know what to do.

“He’s not,” says Madara shortly, and he meets Sasuke’s eyes with no hesitation. He looks better now than he did last time Sasuke saw him, although that’s not hard. But still. He looks… young, young enough. Twenty, maybe. And wild, and a bit mad, because apparently these are just traits of Madara’s, and not the result of decades of unhinged brooding. 

Sasuke can _feel_ the dubious expression Hashirama levels at them both. “But–” 

“I know,” snaps Madara, “but I think I would remember a relative with only one arm. Who the hell are you?”

Sasuke pauses, hesitates. They’ve seen his eyes, so they know that much, but – no. It shouldn’t matter. “Uchiha Sasuke,” he says blankly. Then, because he can’t help himself: “What year is it?” 

Madara tells him, and Sasuke has a second to register it but not to digest it, and then Hashirama says, sharp and abrupt: “What’s that on your chest?”

It’s a direct, rude question – what’s on Sasuke’s chest is what’s on anyone’s. Even enemies don’t usually comment. And, of course, Sasuke’s soul mark isn’t anything to comment about, because it’s a blur with no definition, not a name. 

Reflexively, he glances down. 

The name is clear. 

_Senju Tobirama_.

This, too, is a name well known to Sasuke. Blankly he thinks that it’s little wonder his soul mark has never been clear. Tobirama died decades before Sasuke was born. But now it is clear. 

He blinks once, slowly. He can’t take it in and he doesn’t think it’s the injury. 

“That’s my brother,” Hashirama says. His voice is as blank as Sasuke feels. He reaches forward, fingers outstretched like he’s going to touch it, and Sasuke jerks back. Pain sings up his leg, echoing along his spine.

“Don’t,” he snaps, covering the mark with his hand. 

“You’re the one walking around with it out in the open,” says Madara, eyes narrowed and suspicious. His sharingan are active, pinwheels spinning lazily, hypnotically in his irises. It is odd to see him with regular sharingan. Even so, Sasuke does not miss the sight of Madara’s eyes. “Why?”

“No,” says Hashirama. “Tobirama’s soul mark is –”

“Blank,” Sasuke finishes. His heart is beating too hard in his chest, but he can still feel the hum of the marking under his fingers. 

“Yes,” says Hashirama slowly. “…Brother’s soul mate fell out of the _sky_ ,” he says suddenly. 

Sasuke would like to take a wary step back but he’s becoming steadily more aware that he might have damaged more than one bone in the landing. The pain in his foot, most obvious and immediate, is quickly being added to by a bad feeling in one ankle and a throb in his knee.

There’s a pause interrupted only by the soft rustle of a bird in the canopy above. 

Then: “You’re coming with me,” says Hashirama, bright eyed and determined. 

_No,_ thinks Sasuke, _I’m not_. Just because he doesn’t want to run on broken bones doesn’t mean he won’t. Ninja have to do things that hurt sometimes. Sasuke is an expert. He sets his jaw. 

“No he’s not,” says Madara, and a heavy hand lands upon Sasuke’s shoulder. He twitches. It’s only partially from the pain of someone jolting his injuries. 

“Eh?” Hashirama turns a wounded look on Madara – on his friend, Sasuke’s pretty sure. He is remarkable in that he can go from looking like a serious shinobi to looking like a begging puppy in about point two five seconds. “But he’s his–” 

“He’s clearly ours,” snaps Madara. “You can’t just take him.”

A series of expressions flickers behind Hashirama’s eyes and finally he breaks into a smile. “But that’s perfect,” he says happily. “We’ve been looking for a way to stop the fighting for years, and it just fell out of the sky!”

“What are you talking about?” Sasuke asks, although there’s a tight feeling in his guts and he thinks he knows exactly what they’re talking about. He shrugs his shoulder out from Madara’s hand and takes another painful step back. Madara doesn’t even look when goes to snatch at his arm instead, and he comes away with nothing but cloth. That makes him look, a single, tightly disturbed glance at the empty sleeve he’s gripping.

Sasuke can feel the sneer curling his mouth and he’s powerless to stop it. He lifts his chin and glowers. 

“You–” There’s another pause, and Madara gives Sasuke a much more critical look now. Before it was impersonal, just threat assessment; now he’s really looking. He can feel Hashirama doing something similar half a step further away, but Madara’s attention feels more dangerous.

“It’s not a bad idea,“ Madara says slowly, “but I’ve met your brother. I wouldn’t wish _that_ upon anyone.”

“They’re soul mates,” Hashirama says lightly, as though the implied insult is completely lost upon him. Maybe it is. “They must suit each other some way. Madara, it’s _perfect_. He has to come with me!” 

“No,” says Sasuke, flatly and implacably, “I don’t.” 

Madara drowns him out: “I’m not letting you drag one of my clansmen back to your family like a kidnapped princess!“ 

Hashirama makes an offended noise. 

“One, he won’t last a night –” 

And now Sasuke knows Madara has vastly underestimated his skills, which is simultaneously irritating and good. He’s used to people knowing who he is, now, even if they’ve never met.

“–and two, if word gets out that you’ve kidnapped one of my clansmen to play concubine to your brother–”

This time the offended noise is more like a horrified squawk. Sasuke snorts quietly.

“Not a _concubine_ –” Hashirama protests. “A spouse.” He’s red around the edges and he shoots a mortified look at Sasuke like he can’t imagine a suggestion more sordid. It strikes him as oddly squeamish, considering.

Sasuke’s not saying he’s thrilled by the idea, but he can think of many worse prospects: experimental tissue, blood bank and organ donor, live sacrifice, captive under interrogation… He cuts his train of thought off with practice.

“Then send a proposal like anyone else would!“ hisses Madara. “I need something to take to the clan elders, not wild rumours that I’ve let you _steal someone_ –” He gives Hashirama a shove, like punctuation.

It occurs to Sasuke, between moments of shock and pain and wondering how he’s going to get away from here and if his ankle will support tree running – it’s going to have to, unfortunately – that Uchiha Madara is awkwardly, clumsily negotiating his marriage.

It’s a… strange feeling.

Eventually, Hashirama is convinced to leave, leaping through the forest in a cloud of mingled impatience and excitement. Here and there, Sasuke is pretty sure he can see the branches moving to accommodate his jumps. Then he’s out of sight, and just as rapidly out of earshot. Well, good.

Madara turns to Sasuke now. He’s grim and suspicious and cautiously optimistic and Sasuke still remembers what a terrible figure he cuts in _Sasuke’s_ time. “Come o-” 

_Sure,_ Sasuke thinks, inwardly disbelieving, and he clobbers Madara in the face, rips away and bolts into the trees. A quiet, heartfelt curse follows him into the branches. 

As much as Sasuke thinks he might like to meet – or at least, you know, follow carefully and _see_ – his soulmate, he’s more interested in getting himself out of this mess. Which means losing Madara. 

Chakra only shores up so much. Every landing bursts over his senses brightly and painfully. On the balance, Sasuke would not recommend fleeing anything on broken bones. 

***

It ends as it is destined to, of course: Sasuke is good but he is not beat-Uchiha-Madara-with-broken-feet- good. This is galling to discover. 

He knows he’ll lose when he fails to make a clean retreat the first time. It’s not a thought or a suspicion - he knows Madara will win. But he keeps fighting because he can’t stop. There’s not a lot else left in Sasuke.

When Madara does finally catch him, they’re both bruised and burnt, and Madara threads his scraped and bloody fingers through Sasuke’s hair and grinds his face into the trunk of an old, indifferent tree. 

“Listen to me well,” he says savagely into Sasuke’s ear, so close that Sasuke can feel the wet heat of his breath and the slick cool spill of his hair against his neck. “I have not fought for this peace for so long to have it slip through my fingers because of your _feelings_. Do you understand me?”

His huge hand gives Sasuke’s skull a shake for emphasis. Sasuke makes no response, will make no response. Madara increases the pressure on his skull enough that Sasuke’s pretty sure he’s going to break his head. 

If Madara kills him here, he can’t sell him for an uneasy peace with the Senju. They both know it. There’s a jagged, satisfied spite in Sasuke’s chest and it expands, filling him up until all that comes out of his mouth is a wheezing, ragged laugh.

Madara lets him go, unsatisfied. The release makes him dizzy. 

“At least I know you are one of ours,” he mutters, sour and cynical, shaking his hand out. Sasuke does not get the opportunity to stagger away. 

That’s true. At least Sasuke knows that the Uchiha clan is pretty much all the same, whenever they are. There’s nothing quite like family.

***

When Madara does, finally, take him back to the Uchiha compound, Sasuke’s conscious enough to hear the conversation he has with the outbound patrol, but not conscious enough to remember it. Getting slammed face first into a tree will do that. 

It’s cold comfort to know that, past the smell of lightning-singed hair, Madara’s had to strap his own stab wounds and is favouring his right leg. Sasuke still lost this round, and Madara hasn’t given him any second opportunity to run. Bastard. 

Madara makes him walk, either out of spite or due to the seriously mistaken impression that sufficient pain will deter Sasuke from disobedience. Stealth is a bit beyond him, so there’s a soft incongruous crunch when he puts one foot painfully in front of the other. It’s sort of hard to choose which leg he’s favouring when both are so badly injured.

“Brother,” says whoever is leading the patrol, bemused upon realising how much of a mess they both are. He reaches forward and Sasuke flinches wildly, then makes a startled sound of pain. Madara’s already-bruising grip on his arm turns steely. 

But he’s not even reaching for Sasuke, it turns out. He pulls a stray twig from Madara’s hair instead. He sounds like he’s suppressing laughter: “He has _one arm_.”

Sasuke feels the snarl well up in his throat before he can stop it, but neither of them pays him any attention. 

“Next time _you_ can catch him,” says Madara, strained and aggrieved. 

***

Sasuke meets the patrol leader properly later, but only after discovering that the healers here are only a little better at it than Sasuke is. He’s not sure if the clan just isn’t good at healing - they certainly don’t have the temperament - or if medical jutsu are a thing that sees a lot of development in the next few generations. The medic Madara drags out of bed to see them both is fascinated and much too excited by the stump of Sasuke’s arm. 

“Such clean healing,” she says, rapturously. They make him sit, although Madara is still up and pacing back and forth like a caged dog, and that means the medic looms over him even though she’s shorter. Her spinning red eyes are fixed on his stump. Sasuke is deeply uncomfortable, in a lot of pain and about an inch from murder.

“His head, sensei.” It’s Madara, oddly, who draws her off and diverts her attention, although his eyes are heavy and suspicious upon Sasuke and not the medic. Sasuke hesitates to call her a doctor, although he supposes she must be. She’s middle aged, anyway, so hopefully that means she’s seen a lot of injuries.

“Concussion, yes. The swelling isn’t too bad. That will be fine in a few days. It’s a wonder you’re not more worried about his feet. Several of the bones are shattered– ”

Sasuke twitches. Shattered. That’s… bad news for his mobility, although it explains the sheer scope of the pain. A broken bone is usually a grinding, dull thing. Not like this has been. 

Madara is giving him a long look. Sasuke interprets it as judgmental but it’s hard to focus on really anything. 

“Stop bracing them up with your chakra, boy, I can’t see what’s going on,” the medic says impatiently, and then he does and she’s poking at him and that _really_ hurts. 

“How long would you estimate his recovery time to be?” Madara interrupts.

“Weeks,” she responds shortly. “Maybe eight.”

He nods. “Good. By that time he might be out of my hair.” 

The medic shoots his hair a look, rather as though she suspects that once something goes in it does not in fact get out. Sasuke snorts.

Eight weeks. That’s… 

What that is, other than very irritating, is not something Sasuke has much time to contemplate. He has no intention of actually sleeping but the medic reaches one glowing green hand toward his face and then – nothing.

When he wakes, Sasuke is under guard. Of course he is. Madara is arrogant, but he’s not stupid. 

His guard is a few years younger, with the build and quiet intensity of a ninja. He looks so much like Sasuke they could use each other for shaving mirrors.

“Time travel, huh?” he asks that first morning, perched at the end of Sasuke’s pallet.

Sasuke eyes him and does not respond, and instead of taking a hint he leans forward and tugs, gently, at the collar of the loose clothing Sasuke has been loaned. 

It still says _Senju Tobirama_.

“Huh,” says Sasuke’s guard, careful not to touch the mark.

“I’ve met him.” There’s an expression on his face like he’s not sure if he should offer congratulations or condolences. “He’s a fierce fighter in battle,” he says after a moment, sort of apologetically.

Sasuke grunts and tugs the fabric away, over the mark. 

The guard’s name turns out to be Izuna, and he’s Madara’s younger brother. He’s easy company, which Sasuke resents. He is quiet, cheerful but contained, and he does not bother to act like he’s just there out of concern that Sasuke might need help or company. 

“He is your soul mate,” he says on the second day, cracking open the sliding door for a taste of the air outside. “Don’t you want to at least meet him?” 

Sasuke is bored. He is unsettled and too alert. He hasn’t managed to sleep even though he knows there’s little likelihood that anyone will hurt him. But mostly he has been still in an empty room and when Izuna swaps out with his other watcher at dawn it’s the most interesting thing that’s happened in hours. 

It’s only intense boredom that makes Sasuke answer, and when he does it’s with a hum and not a word. 

Izuna is unfazed. “I’d want to, I think,” he says thoughtfully. 

It’s not that Sasuke doesn’t want to meet his soul mate - it’s that he wants to find how to get back, which isn’t likely to happen if Madara bundles him up and hands him over to the Senju, where he will be a well-treated hostage. And even if he does sort of not mind the idea of meeting Tobirama, he has no interest in doing it on Madara’s terms. 

Sasuke has been manipulated and pressured into a lot of things in his life. Perhaps it’s childish, but he does not enjoy being forced. 

There just isn’t a lot he can do about it right now. 

Izuna sighs. “There’s a meeting with the clan elders tomorrow,” he says, soft, a peace offering Sasuke didn’t ask for. “About you.” 

Sasuke makes an acknowledgeing noise. At least he should find out what’s being decided for him first hand, even if he has to heal before he can do anything about it. 

***

A week passes with no word from the Senju, and Sasuke grows restless. He has plenty of time to reflect on his situation, which is not ideal for his temper.

Worse, now that the elders know who he is - sort of - there’s more than one who comes by. They are as aggravating as clan elders ever are, full of condescension and soft comments about his parentage and what great honour he should feel about being useful to the clan. 

They seem to think Sasuke’s under guard because of the potential for sabotage via assassination. This might even be true, in some respects. Sasuke has no doubt that Izuna would do his best to prevent harm from coming to Sasuke. He’ll just also do his best to prevent Sasuke leaving. 

Sasuke trots out and exercises his atrophied vocabulary in the first days after that meeting. Say what you like about Madara - and Sasuke will - but at least this one is straightforward about what he wants from Sasuke, and what Sasuke can expect to get for it.

“Oh,” says Izuna, once the last of the elders has left in a stiff offended huff for the day, “you do speak. I was beginning to wonder.” 

Sasuke sighs, closes his eyes and wishes he could get up and leave. Technically he can, but his feet and his ankle will begin to give him serious trouble after about twenty steps. He remains. 

“Has there been any word yet?” he asks finally. 

“From Senju? Not yet. I guess it’s hard waiting.”

“I’d like to know what their terms for me are,” Sasuke grinds out. 

Izuna shrugs. “Brother won’t let them get away with a lot. If they’re not good, he’ll send them back.” 

“You think so,” says Sasuke slowly. He’s pretty sure Madara will do whatever he considers necessary to broker an end to the fighting between clans. If that involves signing an agreement that says Sasuke can be tossed in a pit of molten lead he’ll do it without turning a hair. He barely knows Sasuke, and only pride as a clan leader might restrain him. 

It seems likely to Sasuke that the terms proposed for this farce will not be especially permissive. Then Sasuke will break them within a day and they’ll be right back at war – and Sasuke will, hopefully, be on his way home. For all that Madara doesn’t give a shit about Sasuke, Sasuke doesn’t feel particularly beholden to this clan, either. 

Izuna looks curiously at him. “Of course. I know you don’t know each other very well, but you _are_ family. He wouldn’t let them…” he eyes Sasuke “…do whatever is putting that expression on your face.”

Sasuke gives him a long, blank look. The list of things Madara would do to his family, given the right motivation, is longer than Sasuke’s remaining arm.

He tries to remember what it’s like to have that much faith in a brother. It’s a dim memory. It hurts a lot more than Sasuke expects. Itachi loved him – Itachi loved him more than Madara’s ever loved _anything_ , but faith is a deceptive, fragile thing. 

Part of Sasuke hopes Izuna dies before he learns this lesson the hard way, but he’s not fool enough to say it aloud. 

Izuna is looking at him with some degree of pity, like Sasuke’s the naive one. “It’ll be all right,” he says, sounding a bit pained. “You’ll see.” 

Sasuke makes a soft noise and declines to argue. Izuna will figure it out, or he’ll die.

***

When the proposal does arrive, Hashirama brings it himself. It sends the whole Uchiha clan into an uproar and makes Madara stalk around with his jaw clenched and his teeth bared while everybody else is scurrying wildly. It resembles nothing so much as a kicked ant hill.

In the confusion, Sasuke’s guard has to dash off, and Sasuke takes the opportunity to let himself out via the window. It’s not an ideal time to leave – with both Madara and Hashirama in the area there is absolutely no chance Sasuke will escape cleanly - but there’s no rule that says he has to stay in one room. If anybody really needs to find him, they’ll use their sharingan and find his chakra. A one-armed chakra circulatory system stands out.

He boosts himself onto the roof with a wince. It's a nice day, sunny but cool. If he tries he can ignore the people scrambling around in surly stressed silence below. 

He’s been confined for days now, because old-timey medics don’t seem as convinced of the need for sunlight and fresh air as the ones Sasuke knows. He closes his eyes against the comings and goings in the compound below and lets the warmth of the light sink into his skin. He feels marginally better about his circumstances almost immediately.

“I think they’re looking for you,” says Hashirama cheerfully, some ten minutes later when he sits down next to him. He’s closer than Sasuke would like, but he’s not sure he can be bothered moving over. 

“Mm,” agrees Sasuke. “I’m sure they’ll follow you up here.” It’s one thing to misplace a slightly recalcitrant member of your own clan, but quite another to lose an outsider in the private compound. 

Hashirama sighs like this lack of trust troubles him. “You should be part of the meeting anyway,” he tells Sasuke. “Tobirama’s got me to represent his interests, but Madara’s not as familiar with you. He might not know what you want.” 

Sasuke finally turns away from the sun. He gives him a flat, unimpressed look. What Sasuke wants is not to end up married to a historical figure. He wants to be able to walk and run properly, and to leave and never come back. He wants to see Karin. Honestly he’d settle for seeing Naruto again at this point. 

Hashirama doesn’t flinch or twitch or even indicate discomfort under Sasuke’s stare. He doesn’t even seem to notice. “So are you coming?” he asks, just as –

“Senju,” snarls a familiar voice below. 

“Coming, coming,” says Hashirama, blithely cheerful in the face of Madara's ire. He leaps from the roof easily and with a thoughtless grace Sasuke misses. 

Sasuke drops down like a four year old learning to climb and the impact steals his breath.

“That’s not a good face,” Hashirama comments, catching his shoulder as though he might need steadying. 

“What were you doing on the roof?” Madara asks, from between his teeth. 

Sasuke shakes off Hashirama and ignores Madara. 

The scurrying around earlier was evidently so that a place could be found to argue - sorry, negotiate - in good faith. It turns out that Hashirama isn’t quite stupid or trusting enough to come on his own, so they arrive to a broad, well-lit room filled with six other armed Senju ninja who all look somewhere between relieved and annoyed to see Hashirama reappear in one piece. None of that group looks particularly relieved to see Madara, and indeed several of them become obviously anxious when they notice him. 

Izuna, on the other hand, flashes a beaming smile at his brother and Sasuke both. 

The negotiation itself takes place under rules with which Sasuke isn’t really familiar. Only Hashirama and Madara speak across the low table where they find themselves seated. Any question or comment from another clan member is addressed to his or her respective head. 

“Hashirama-sama,” says one woman, who seems unfamiliar with the honorific but determined to use it, “surely your brother’s soul mate would display for us the mark.” And Madara acts like he hasn’t even heard her.

Sasuke’s not quite sure why; perhaps having only one person represent the group is meant to minimise confusion. It does give them the liberty of completely ignoring the person who complains that Tobirama’s soul mate is a cripple simply because Hashirama doesn’t elect to voice it. Izuna blinks rapidly and Sasuke raises his eyebrow and nobody says anything. Perhaps this tradition is meant to minimise bloodshed, rather than confusion.

“Do you think your cousin would mind uncovering the mark?” Hashirama says lightly, which is apparently when the question actually reaches Madara’s ears. The word he uses for cousin is old fashioned and oddly specific, a _your father’s sister’s child_ sort of business that makes Sasuke seem much more closely related to Madara than he actually is. Sasuke wants to ask if he’s lying to his own clan by implication here but – 

Aside from everything else, that’s not really Sasuke’s business. 

Madara doesn’t ask. It’s not like Sasuke’s got a choice, but the illusion might have been more comfortable. When he leans in as though he plans to personally undress Sasuke in public, Sasuke fixes him with the single most murderous look he can muster. For once in his entire misbegotten life, Madara takes the hint.

Sasuke lets them peer at his soul mark as closely as they like, staring blankly into the middle distance. Once or twice it seems like one of the Senju ninja will reach out and touch it, touch him, and Sasuke can feel the tension in the room skyrocket whenever he moves in response. Still. He draws the line at his soul mark being poked and prodded by strangers. If one of them touches it, they’re likely to lose their hand. If they’re already touching him then Madara can’t move fast enough to stop him. From the look his “cousin” is giving him, Sasuke thinks this must be plain on his face. 

In the end it is a soul mark, humming and alive on his skin, and nobody bothers to suggest it’s fake. Hashirama smiles around at everyone like he genuinely can’t think of anything less aggravating to be doing with his time. 

Sasuke is already restless and tired in equal measure. At some point Izuna has managed to move around behind them, and now he’s a warm – and subtly restraining – presence behind Sasuke. 

This is when the actual terms are negotiated, of course. It's… unpleasant. Not only are the ongoing terms of Sasuke’s – supposed – marriage hashed out and scribbled down in cramped ink characters, but they’re intertwined with the peace agreement between clans. What geographical areas belong to which. Resource sharing. Mission divisions. Acceptable armament. What kind of price Madara is willing to settle on his poor orphaned cousin–

Sasuke shifts uncomfortably and eyes Madara, who ignores him completely. 

A less romantic proposal Sasuke can’t imagine, and he’s angry that the thought even occurs to him. What is he, some soft-sighing girl with stars in her eyes?

But there’s a sharp and vicious pettiness to this negotiation that makes Sasuke feel like Tobirama is wise to have stayed home. Or maybe he wasn’t allowed to come. Who knows. Either way, he isn’t here to witness these people fighting bitterly for scraps under the guise of ‘concerns’ about whether or not the happy couple should be allowed to sleep in separate beds. On the other hand, Sasuke can see Hashirama’s expression every time he’s compelled to revisit the bed-sharing as a topic. It’s not worth it, but at least Sasuke knows someone else is suffering. 

The terms are, in the end, not quite as restrictive as Sasuke expected, in that the worst of them are time limited - he’s to be a well-treated prisoner, basically, for six months; go nowhere except under guard, spend all his time inside the Senju compound, not meet with any of his family except Madara, monthly, supervised. After that, many restrictions will dissolve. In theory.

“Do you think there’s anything your cousin might need to bring up?” Hashirama says finally, hours and hours after they begin. The sun is burning low now and Sasuke’s stiff from sitting properly this whole time. 

“No,” says Madara, probably because he knows very well what Sasuke might say if given the opportunity. 

Sasuke, in the meantime, has resolved to say nothing anyway. He can go along with it for a while. Once his injuries are better he’ll be gone with the breeze, so it doesn’t matter what plans they may make or where they might try to keep him.

Hashirama’s face does something complicated but he takes Madara at his word. “Then are we done?”

“Yes,” sighs Madara. 

All at once the atmosphere relaxes. The Senju ninja stop looking so grim – not, Sasuke realises, a natural state for them.

Abruptly Hashirama makes a dive across the table for Sasuke, who has already replaced himself with a large cushion before he realises that the cushion is in fact being hugged. 

Hashirama remains undeterred, shoots back to his feet and catches him before Sasuke can figure out what to do with this information. Hashirama hugs him, tightly and inescapably. 

The last time someone hugged Sasuke it was Sakura and he was twelve. The last time Sasuke hugged anyone back it was Itachi.

Hashirama is most assuredly not Itachi. He doesn’t hug like Itachi, either, who was a gentle person in a lot of ways. Hashirama sort of… _engulfs_ , warm and solid and big. It makes Sasuke’s pulse leap into his throat and he doesn’t know what to do with his hand. Other than punch, maybe? But Hashirama has six bodyguards who probably won’t take that well. 

“Welcome to my family,” he says cheerily to Sasuke, giving him a final rib-cracking squeeze. 

“Enough,” says Madara, tugging Hashirama away by the collar. “If you can’t restrain yourself, I’ll have someone escort you out–” 

“You’re so cold,” Hashirama complains, “I just got a new brother!” But he releases him and Sasuke breathes again. 

“He won’t last long if you _smother_ him,” Madara snipes. But from what Sasuke can tell they’re both in excellent moods. That stands to reason, since they’re both getting exactly what they want. 

Sasuke finds his own mood is fairly dark, despite how little relevance the meeting will have to him long term. For now, watching has left a bad taste in his mouth.

“I’m still recovering,” he says blandly to Izuna when he edges toward the door on unsteady, aching feet. He only has to hide how badly they hurt until he gets outside the room, he figures.

Predictably, Izuna’s eyebrow shoots right up at the suggestion that Sasuke is voluntarily returning to his bed. “I’ll escort you,” he says, equally uninflected by either approval or disapproval. 

Sasuke doesn’t bother protesting. Outside, the light through the paper over the windows is dimming with dusk. There will be lanterns around somewhere, Sasuke supposes, but if there’s really not enough light he can always set the compound on fire. There’s nobody except Izuna to hide from once the door is closed behind him, and Sasuke doesn’t care enough what he thinks to make the effort. He braces a hand on the wall and shifts his weight off the foot that hurts worse – which aggravates the opposite ankle, of course. Of course. He takes a deep breath. 

Sasuke is exhausted, in pain and a little unsettled by the feeling that he’s just been purchased under contract like a prize dog.

One foot in front of the other then.

“Here,” Izuna offers his arm, and then when Sasuke ignores it he hooks it around Sasuke’s waist, hauls him in close and very nearly lifts him off the floor without trying. There’s much less weight on his legs and feet with his weight braced on Izuna. It’s also nothing like Hashirama’s terrible crushing hug. Sasuke will let it slide as long as he gets back to his room and they don’t run into anybody. 

“We don’t feed you enough,” Izuna decides, three steps later. Sasuke’s pretending he’s not there. It’s awkward, but they make it.

“It’s good news, isn’t it?” he says finally, once Sasuke is seated - in a chair, not a cushion on the floor. There’s no pressure except gravity on most of his injuries now. It’s… not painless, but better. Sufficiently better that Sasuke’s annoyed with himself for failing to shove Izuna away earlier. “A peace agreement. There’s no way that can be bad news… right?”

“It’s not my war,” says Sasuke, and ignores the troubled expression Izuna levels at him. If it was, maybe he’d feel better about the agreement. 

“It might be,” Izuna says finally, busying himself with setting water over the low fire in the corner. “I don’t know how you got here exactly, but you obviously don’t know how to get back. I’m sure you’re capable when you’re not injured, Sasuke, but you…” He lets it hang, because Izuna is capable of so much more delicacy than his brother. There’s no real need to finish saying _if you can’t get back you have nowhere else to go_.

“Maybe,” says Sasuke, disinclined to let Izuna know one way or the other if his comment has found its mark. “But I haven’t had much opportunity to find out.” _Yet_ is unspoken but he’s sure both of them hear it. 

***

Still Sasuke does not meet Tobirama. If he hadn’t been taught village history with the rest of the clan’s children, Sasuke might be starting to wonder if his soul mate actually exists.

He considers making the request of Madara, but he baulks at requesting anything of that man. Asking him for something is necessarily putting himself into a position of vulnerability, but – Sasuke thinks on it again. Maybe he should. Maybe it would indicate to Madara that he has more interest in meeting Tobirama than engineering an escape. Maybe it would make him appear more cooperative. But he’d still have to ask Madara. 

“Before the wedding?” Izuna asks, puzzled, when he mentions it in passing. “Is that really okay?“ 

Sasuke stares at him. _Yes,_ he thinks, _before the damn wedding._

Izuna is unfazed. “Well. The future must be a weird place. I could maybe get a picture for you,” he offers, lifting one shoulder. “Although I think all of ours are, um, you know, kill on sight orders.”

Of course they are. “Never mind,” says Sasuke. Better to get puzzled looks from Izuna than to actually talk to Madara and still get nowhere. 

“No, no,” says Izuna, “it’s a fair point. When he’s not trying to split you in half he’s not even that bad-looking. You might like him. I’ll–” and Izuna goes on, fluttering the fingers of one hand, until Sasuke throws something at him to shut him up.

He obviously doesn’t let it go, though, because on his next shift of guard duty Izuna shows up trailing bingo book entries.

“I got them from other relatives,” he explains. “Some people collect them. I have to make sure I get the one from Shi clan back to Nanao, though because apparently it’s rare–” 

The ninja here collect bingo book entries sheet by sheet like trading cards, Sasuke realises, blinking. Or, given that time usually only runs one way, maybe it would be more accurate to say that modern trading cards are like bingo book entries. 

The rare entry Izuna shoves at Sasuke looks so little like Senju Tobirama that Sasuke starts to wonder if maybe he has a completely separate namesake among the Senju clan. One with three eyes and teeth like a big cat. 

“It’s not really accurate,” Izuna admits, peering over Sasuke’s shoulder. 

“No,” drawls Sasuke. “Really?”

“I’m not sure why she’s so attached to it.” 

Probably, Sasuke thinks, she’s attached to it because it says the clan will give his killer gold weight for weight against Tobirama’s head. 

There’s sixteen of them, all different, because it turns out that a lot of clans want Tobirama dead badly enough to commit that wish to paper, and to give a reward for it. 

“This one’s closest,” Izuna announces, pulling a sketch from the pile. “Hm, Yamanaka clan. Should have guessed - they always have the best intel.”

He hands it over, and suddenly Sasuke feels acutely uncomfortable. Why is he even doing this? He knows what Tobirama looks like. He grew up looking at his face carved into the mountainside. Abruptly he wants to crush the page and refuse to look at it. What difference does it make? 

He must be silent and still too long because Izuna makes an awkward, aborted motion toward him. 

“Sasuke?” He leans closer. “You don’t have to do it if you don’t want. I just thought it might be better than nothing.” 

Izuna’s pity is the thing Sasuke needs least right now. He opens his mouth to tell him to leave him alone– but he can’t, obviously. He’s there to make sure Sasuke doesn’t leave, and he can’t pack up and leave Sasuke to mope on his own just because Sasuke feels like it. 

Either way, Sasuke’s not going to be poring pathetically over scraps of information about his soul mate like an abandoned lover. He puts the page down, face down, next to him. He doesn’t crumple it and hurl it away because apparently it’s somebody else’s collectible. File that under things he didn’t know he’d need to know about being stuck in the distant past. 

“Later, maybe,” he gets out. It sounds as bad in the air as it does in his head. 

“Okay,” says Izuna. He touches Sasuke’s shoulder and withdraws his hand when Sasuke twitches.

“…I have weapons to take care of,” he decides, and he subsides into wordless metallic sounds for the next hour or so. He continues to tread carefully around Sasuke and Sasuke resents it. He’s a prisoner. Why bother?

Later, Sasuke flips over the page and glances at the sketch. It’s a good likeness. He stares at Tobirama’s face on the page and doesn’t know what he’s meant to think about that. 

He rubs the mark on his chest with his thumb absently. It hums under his touch. _Senju Tobirama_.

Predictably, Sasuke doesn’t sleep well. 

***

The wedding rushes on as quickly as Madara and Hashirama can make it happen. Sasuke has uncharitable thoughts about them wanting it to be over with before Sasuke’s range of motion recovers, but he knows that’s only part of the reason. There’s also the potential for one or both parties to be assassinated. 

The alliance of two very powerful clans in the area, where before they could be trusted to keep each other busy and in balance, must represent a serious change in the political landscape. Sasuke’s pretty sure more than one person has already been sent to kill him.

“Yes,” agrees Madara, when he finally asks. Madara comes by rarely, and only ever when Izuna’s on guard duty. Today, though, he comes bearing rice and salted fish. The compound must be near a river. Fresh and salted fish are extremely common components in their food, but Sasuke hasn’t seen really any fruit since he got here. “Three so far. Why?” 

“You didn’t mention it,” Sasuke says from between his teeth. He eats with careful motions, bowl on his lap. It’s not technically good manners, but he lacks a second hand with which to hold the bowl closer to his face.

“What point is there? Nobody has come close.” Madara shrugs, maddeningly. 

“If somebody’s trying to kill me, I prefer to know.” 

“They’re not trying to kill you,” Madara points out, “because by the time I’d have told you, they’re already dead.” 

This… is true. But Sasuke still prefers to know when somebody has been putting a lot of effort into killing him. 

“Besides,” Madara adds, pointing at Sasuke with his chopsticks , “you always act like someone’s trying to kill you. What difference would it make?”

Sasuke scowls fiercely. He really doesn’t. Madara makes it sound like he’s the world’s most difficult prisoner, and he truly isn’t. He could be refusing food and sleep, making escape attempts daily, injuring himself and attacking the guards. Sasuke acts here like he does anywhere. He even dozes despite being almost constantly under watch. 

Izuna’s watching him like he can see what Sasuke’s thinking. “If we told you, it might upset you. Can you really afford to be any _more_ tense?” 

Wedding preparations are a thing that make Sasuke long for the comparatively sensible stress of an assassination attempt. Izuna proves himself to be a strange blessing in this time of bewilderment and anxiety. 

The date is set for late autumn, so there are invitations to be created – even though they’re probably the ones trying to assassinate him, the major clans in the area must be invited to witness, apparently – and sent off. It’s supposedly traditional that Sasuke write them, except that Izuna and Madara both look at his handwriting like it’s a completely foreign language. He doesn’t have time to learn their melodramatic, flourishing script so he gets out of it handily. That doesn’t really save him, though.

As his injuries slowly – agonisingly slowly, although the medic tells him he’s healing faster than average – recover, Izuna starts taking him through the compound and down to the kitchens, insisting he try this and that and this other thing and should they serve it at the event? The cooks are alarmingly attentive to his facial expression. 

“There’s nothing you want there? Nothing specific?” 

Sasuke wonders who he’d have to kill to get fresh tomatoes in this part of the world at this point in time. It’s probably doable. …Maybe.

“No,” he says, and pretends not to see how anxious the cook looks.

Izuna just makes a face. “Fine, I’ll ask them to cook my favourites then.” 

“Mm,” says Sasuke, unconcerned. 

When it’s not the invitations or the food, it’s people he’s never met before in his life coming to his room or stopping him while he’s carefully stretching his weak legs. They ask “What would you like?” and “Going to live so far away from your own clan, you’ll need things to remind you of home, won’t you?” It’s as though they actually believe this is Sasuke’s home. 

Sasuke has lived for years out of a backpack. What these ninja consider their field kits is basically everything Sasuke owns. He doesn’t need more things – he’ll just have to leave them behind or carry them with him. He doesn’t know how to answer so, uncomfortably, he doesn’t. 

The first few times the silence stretches until Sasuke is looking at nearby roofs for escape routes. “I don’t want anything,” he says finally. 

“Even if you don’t,” says Izuna, rolling his eyes, “they have to get you something. It’s polite. You might as well make sure it’s something you actually need.” 

So Sasuke starts giving them actual things to go find for him, like a flock of jackdaws sent to collect shiny objects. Clothing, senbon and kunai, tinder, hooks, a suturing kit– 

“Bedding,” says Izuna, who seems to be pulling a greater and greater number of guard shifts as Sasuke recovers. He says it with a note of despair. “So you have something to sleep on. A cooking pot. Two, even. _Bowls,_ so you have something to eat out of. You’re getting married, Sasuke,” he says, like maybe Sasuke hasn’t realised. “Not going on a three month mission.” 

Sasuke eyes him. “Maybe you should make a list,” he says finally. 

Bless him, but Izuna actually does. 

There’s evidently also a whole host of arcane decorative magic going on that Sasuke neither understands nor wishes to know about. Two kunoichi are in charge of the flowers, which turns out to be so much more complicated and stressful than Sasuke has ever expected anything involving flowers to be – and, for reference, he grew up in the same village as Ino and Sakura. 

The closer the date looms, the more he notices people running around fretting about dianthus and bush clover and whether not having sufficient chrysanthemum blossoms will imply a lack of trust in the Senju clan (“Well, _yes_ ,” he hears one of them say while he’s perched on the roof of an outbuilding. “Of course we don’t trust them?” The other one elbows her but never disagrees. So there’s that). 

“Do you think anyone will notice if there’s not enough valerian?” Asks one of them, coming by his room and wringing her hands. She means well, Sasuke assumes, but he has no idea how one even defines a sufficiency of valerian and he’s only ever used the roots to make a tisane to put himself to sleep. (Didn’t work. Apparently a cup of valerian tea isn’t enough to counteract a lifetime of adrenalin.) 

Happily, the other kunoichi comes zooming out of nowhere to collect her before Sasuke’s forced to give an opinion on flowers. 

There’s no one to save him from the fittings for wedding clothes. The less said about that, the better. 

“At least you’re handsome,” says Izuna. Since he and Sasuke could nearly be twins, Sasuke takes this assessment with a grain of salt. 

“What part of this is the Senju clan taking care of, exactly?” He asks instead of engaging with that bait. Fittings require Sasuke to be on his feet and unmoving for long stretches at a time. The medic seems sure he can do it now, but it still hurts. 

“Oh. Well, you’re going to live with them, so we have to do the ceremony. Equitable division of labour and all that.” 

This, Sasuke decides, is a division of labour that implies Sasuke isn’t capable of actually earning his keep. The past is a strange, foreign land. He thinks he’ll be glad to pack up and leave just as soon as he gets the chance.

… And if he can’t get back, he can always move to Rock.

Then, some days before the ceremony which Sasuke feels unavoidably anxious about even though it doesn’t _mean_ anything at all (except perhaps, meeting his soul mate finally), Madara mentions the procession.

“The what,” says Sasuke. 

“The procession,” Madara repeats, short and impatient. “Where we take everything to your new… Izuna said he’s been preparing you for this,” he interrupts himself, turning to narrow his eyes at Izuna. 

“I have been,” says Izuna serenely. “He’s very well prepared. But there are some things our cousin copes with a lot better if he knows as little about them as possible beforehand.”

Sasuke is unavoidably reminded of their earlier discussion about assassins, and about what Sasuke needs to know. 

“The procession is just where we take the stuff everyone got you to your new place, okay?” Izuna says to Sasuke. “It’s meant to be fancy and decorative, so they do it with a carriage and a bunch of people trailing around.” 

Apparently there’s a wedding parade. No, nobody told Sasuke about the wedding parade. He probably would not have agreed to a wedding parade, but since he wasn’t really in agreement about the wedding itself he’s guessing nobody cares.

He asks the pertinent question: “Do I need to do anything?”

“Try not to look too horrified when you see Tobirama’s face,” Madara suggests.

“Brother,” hisses Izuna, “we’re trying to _reduce_ the flight risk.” 

Madara gives Sasuke a look that says clearly that he thinks nothing will reduce the flight risk. It fascinates Sasuke that in the few days Madara has spent with him he’s assessed Sasuke more accurately than Izuna has after weeks of watching over him.

The event itself is held on neutral ground, negotiated with a small, fierce and largely uninvolved clan whose name Sasuke doesn’t catch. Their people all have soft-looking silvery hair and dogs that wall beside them in perfect unison with their steps, like a quieter and better-housebroken version of the Inuzuka clan.

That stressed pair of kunoichi can rest easy in their success because there are definitely flowers: bellflowers, boneset, kudzu, the much-debated valerian blossoms, all artfully arranged, amidst the screens and wall hangings. That, he hears from a properly scandalised elder, is not where flowers are meant to be set – too innovative.

Meanwhile, Sasuke thinks even his grandparents might have considered this wedding appropriately traditional. 

Into all this Sasuke is escorted, heavily decorated and wasting all his focus on not limping. He feels like a yearling calf being led to a large suspicious factory. Madara, in this simile, holds the lead line. In reality he just walks a step behind Sasuke, wire tense and ready to lunge for Sasuke at the slightest indication he might get it into his head to flee. 

It’s a stupid precaution. When Sasuke leaves, it’s not going to be in the middle of a giant crowd of onlookers. 

Hashirama appears at their side in a rush of leaves and good cheer, despite how stressful the situation should feel. His is a face Sasuke mistrusts. He can’t be in that much of a good mood as often as he looks like he is. 

“It’ll be fine,” he says patiently to Madara.

“It had better,” is Madara’s only response. 

“Scary face,” murmurs Hashirama, and gets smacked over the head for his trouble.

Sasuke amuses himself briefly by trying to pick out the representative groups from different clans and match them with their modern equivalents. There’s a tall kunoichi with a trailing tail of golden hair and no discernible pupils, which must be the Yamanaka contingent. That by turn makes it easy to pick out the Akimichi and Nara ninja. Inuzuka is equally easy to find because their clan head is having a pissing contest with one of the host ninja. Sasuke sees no blank Hyuuga eyes and he’s not sure why. He thinks there’s also no Aburame until a kikaichuu drifts quietly past his nose and lands on his sleeve. He crushes it deftly, flicks its remains away and assumes they’re around somewhere, since they’re obviously taking advantage of the gathering. 

“Holding up alright?” asks a masked member of their security squads, slinking out of a shadow nearby. That answers Sasuke’s questions about where Izuna might have gotten to. 

“Mm,” Sasuke agrees, and then Izuna’s gone again. Sasuke does not know that technique. He considers waking up his sharingan to see if he can copy it, but he suspects it might be bad form.

Sasuke really just wants this event to be over with, featuring a minimum of fuss. He knows he won’t get to stay at the party, which is a pity because everyone is likely to get a little drunk. That would be an excellent time to leave. If they’re drunk, even his injuries won’t prevent him getting away… 

But as far as he knows Sasuke’s going to be packed off with his new husband and a contingent of guards, so escape remains unlikely for now. 

To facilitate this stupid mess being as fast and painless as possible, Sasuke goes where Madara points and keeps his mouth shut.

Tobirama, when he finally lays eyes upon him, is just as blank of expression as Sasuke. He’s not really pretty or handsome, exactly, but his is a sharp, symmetrical face. The marks on his face are scars dyed red, not clan tattoos, which Sasuke knew but never really registered. He looks more like a ninja than a person, really, and this is something that Sasuke finds oddly relieving.

He’s quieter and calmer than his brother, and he doesn’t look nervous. He doesn’t look especially happy to be there, either, but there’s nothing about him that suggests he’s anywhere butwhere he wants to be. 

“Hmm,” murmurs Madara from beside him. “Not horrified, then.” Sasuke ignores him.

Sasuke squares his shoulders. He’s still stuck walking with a limp unless he makes a serious effort not to. Even then it’s noticeable to somebody paying attention, and he can see the shift of Tobirama’s assessing eyes. 

For the first time Sasuke has to wonder what his soul mate actually thinks of the whole business. Possibly he’s grown up with the concept of a very artificial, carefully arranged marriage in mind. Maybe it’s not as weird to him. 

Even if it is, it’s much too late for second guessing now. 

There’s a wedding. After all this fuss, it’s simple: a ceremony during the day, a party in the evening. There’s a ritual cup of sake exchanged between them. They change clothes from the ones they arrived in to a new set nominally provided to each by the other. Sasuke assumes it’s meant to be symbolic. 

They receive polite congratulations, given by people who might not give a damn and who might have been trying to have Sasuke killed this whole time. He gives them all the same blank face. 

After the ceremony the crowd sends them packing in an elaborate carriage back to the Senju compound. 

The doors of the carriage close, sealing out the sounds as the party begins. The carriage moves off with the crunch of earth under its wheels. They have an escort mingled of tall, too-cheerful Senju ninja and smaller and quieter Uchihas. 

Sasuke wonders if he’s meant to say something. He settles for silence. He watches Tobirama though. There’s not really anywhere else to look.

The crunch of the wheels is loud inside the carriage. Even injured, Sasuke knows he can run faster than it’s moving. Outside, he can hear the ninja talking, loud enough to get indistinct sounds but not hear the words from inside the carriage. They’re louder than he expects, but perhaps escorting a large, slow carriage isn’t a stealth job anyway. 

When Tobirama does finally talk, all he says is: “How severe are your injuries?” 

It’s not his brother’s overwhelming _welcome to the family!_ or a frighteningly overcommitted _you’re my soul mate, I’ve finally met my soul mate, I’ve been waiting for this_ exclamation. It’s just a question, the same kind of question Sasuke would ask a new mission partner. 

“Healing, and not dangerous,” Sasuke says. He’s aware he’s fallen into the exact tone he’d give a report in. “I expect to be recovered in three to four weeks.” It’s actually closer to two, but Sasuke isn’t sure if Tobirama will prove obstructive, so it’s better to overstate his recovery time and let it be a surprise.

Tobirama just nods. They subside into silence again. 

Sasuke isn’t sure what he expected, but this isn’t it. The journey continues, quiet and unthreatening. 

At length they are deposited with much ceremony into a house among others in a new compound. Sasuke hesitates to think of it as a “village” because it’s much too small, but it seems very large for just one clan. The compound is relatively quiet, presumably because a great many of its residents are at the wedding party.

The house is small, new and made of pale wood. Sasuke can see no joins to anything - every new part flows organically from another. 

“Hashirama made this,” he realises, touching one of the walls with his fingertips. He’s facing away from Tobirama so he lets red fill his eyes, searching for a visual on the chakra he can’t quite feel but knows is present. It’s there, but muted and unresponsive. He wonders if it’ll drain away or just linger in the wood. 

“Yes,” says Tobirama. “I can’t take the time from running missions to build a house.” It’s not apologetic, it’s forcefully neutral. There’s his answer, Sasuke thinks; this is as much of an awkward imposition upon Tobirama as it is upon Sasuke. He’s not sure why the clans can agree to peace with a marriage, but not without. 

“I didn’t ask you to,” Sasuke says. He’s going for even, but he can hear the edge to his voice. 

There’s a pause. “It would be traditional.”

“I don’t care.” And he doesn’t. Sasuke is in fact sick to death of traditions.

There’s a long silence. 

Sasuke can hear the cheerful carriage departing outside, but he still twitches when someone knocks on the doorframe. “You’re on your own now.” Izuna. Of course. “Try not to get anyone killed, okay?” 

Sasuke snorts softly. “Go,” he says, instead of answering. He doesn’t hear Izuna leave, but he can see the indistinct shift of chakra when the Uchiha ninja depart. Reluctantly, he lets his eyes drain to black. 

There are some things already in the house, aside from the bare bones of furniture that Hashirama can apparently make from nothing but seeds. Some of it is stuff Sasuke recognises, and others…

He should have paid more attention to the list Izuna made.

There are sensible things in there, pots and bedding and bowls and a neat, plain tea set, but he also finds unfamiliar screens and scrolls, a calligraphy set, mirrors and combs and basins, a tea ceremony set, three books of poetry that Sasuke’s never going to read. Someone has given him an enormous silk screen depicting Amaterasu. 

Sasuke is finally faced with the uncomfortable revelation that he’s been _dowered_. He stares for a long, unsettled moment before turning away. 

…and almost colliding with Tobirama. 

They look at each other in silence. Sasuke has no idea what to do. He understands how wedding nights are meant to progress in theory but sex is the very last thing he wants to contemplate. And if he must contemplate, he’s not even sure he wants it with Tobirama, soul mate or no. 

“It’s a respectable amount, if you’re wondering,“ Tobirama says, breaking the world’s most awkward silence with the world’s most awkward comment.

 _No he is not wondering._ Sasuke feels one of his eyelids twitch.

”…My brother said they don’t have the same traditions, in the future.“ For the first time, he sounds as lost as Sasuke.

Sasuke supposes it makes sense that Hashirama would tell his brother, just as it makes sense that Tobirama would wait until there were no other ninja in easy earshot to open the topic. He gives the thought time to settle and nods. “We don’t really have arranged marriages.” 

The “arranged” marriages of Sasuke’s time are those where the clan head must give permission to any match - as he knows the Hyuuga clan does - or perhaps where a couple is expected to marry but where either may also exercise right of veto. 

Tobirama seems puzzled by the idea. “Not even between soul mates?”

Sasuke shakes his head. Soul mates tend to find each other either way; arranging the match is arguably even more pointless. 

“Your clan obviously survives for many years,” he says after a long pause. “Does mine?” 

Sasuke wonders if it would be comforting to know that Sasuke is in fact the last of the clan, and that no heirs are forthcoming – unless there’s a child of Itachi or Obito out there that Sasuke knows nothing about, which he doubts. 

“Yes,” he says finally, and doesn’t elaborate. He could tell Tobirama about Tsunade, but he’s sure they’ll meet. Eventually.

Tobirama is watching him with a laserlike focus. “You want to return.” 

Sasuke is peripherally aware that Tobirama is supposed to have been a genius, but the ninja world by and large applies this label to whoever it feels like - a genius at murdering people is not necessarily a particularly smart person. Tobirama, though? Sasuke is starting to get an inkling that he is actually very clever. And probably very dangerous. 

Sasuke nods, once, jerkily. 

“I’m not surprised.”

No, Sasuke supposes it isn’t very surprising, if you stop and think about it for thirty seconds. Which is about twenty nine seconds longer than Madara did.

Tobirama crosses his arms over his broad chest. “Soulmate bond aside for a moment, our union must be preserved for the sake of peace between clans.” 

“I’m aware.” Sasuke grits his teeth. He knows. He’s been told only once or twice a day for the last month and a half.

“I’m - currently - the foremost expert on space-time ninjutsu, so I’ll make you a deal: you stay here and preserve the peace agreement between clans, willingly and in good faith. Give it a year at least. In return, I’ll help you figure out how to get back.”

Sasuke probably shouldn’t tell him that he’s _still_ the foremost expert on space-time ninjutsu in the modern world. He’d be stupid to reject Tobirama’s assistance, because as willing as Sasuke is to work alone if he has to, what he knows about space-timetechniques wouldn’t fill a thimble. 

Still, he frowns. Agreement means marriage, in good faith, to Tobirama. All the vows and ceremonial exchanges mean nothing compared to whether he agrees to this now. 

He eyes Tobirama. He’s cleverer than Sasuke thought, because after all this farcical mess, all the guard rotations and ‘well it might be your war’s and pomp and ceremony and Madara staring at him like he’s going to cut and run as soon as he can walk without pain, here and now he’s being offered the choice. It isn’t much of a choice, true. But it’s also not Hashirama’s false friendliness and determined _You’re coming with me_ , or Madara’s savage _I have not fought for this peace for so long to let it slip through my fingers because of your feelings_. 

This is what is in Tobirama’s power to offer, so he does.

Maybe that’s what it means, to be soul mates. For the first time Sasuke’s mildly curious about the mark on Tobirama’s chest. 

Sasuke glances over his shoulder at his gathered treasures, his _dowry_ , like he’s some vapid daimyou’s daughter. He’s not sure if he knows how to perform a marriage, or even if he remembers what acting good faith feels like. 

“Fine,” he says finally. 

Tobirama blinks once, slowly, and then smiles. It does oddly nice things to his face. 

Sasuke isn’t quite sure if he’s ready to attempt that, but he inclines his head peaceably and for the first time in a month and a half he feels like he can breathe. When Tobirama lays a hand on his shoulder, Sasuke does not flinch.

**Author's Note:**

> 16/05/17 EDIT: Some commenters asked if Sasuke would still want to return to the future in a year’s time and abandon the past and his soul mate. To be honest this is neither a source of narrative tension I intended to create nor the zero sum game it sounds like. Unless you assume Sasuke is travelling in a loop in a single universal timeline (rather than between parallel universes) he and Tobirama could absolutely just pack up and go together.
> 
> Of course, this would be some Hashirama-level spontaneous irresponsibility on Tobirama’s part. So he probably wouldn’t. But for argument’s sake, I think you can assume his brother looks at him and looks at Sasuke and looks at their magical space-time portal and then plants his foot in Tobirama’s butt and kicks him through.
> 
>  
> 
> If there was something you particularly liked, let me know in a comment.


End file.
